Paulo Afonso Brando Duarte is Assistant Professor at Universidade Lusófona - Centro Universitário do Porto and Invited Professor at the University of Minho. Invited speaker for several conferences and seminars wordwide and often cooperates with foreign and Portuguese media. PhD and a Masters in Political and Social Sciences, awarded by the Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium. Expert in China’s Belt and Road Initiative, on China, World Politics, and specifically Central Asia, where he carried out on-the-ground doctoral research (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan) with a scholarship awarded from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. Author of Metamorfoses no Poder: rumo à hegemonia do dragão? with preface and presentation by Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, current President of Portugal.